Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/276

Chap. VIII. OF MANCHESTER, 145 and were obliged to march at the general's command 3 But as in a feries of years the number of males in the colonies muft have necefikrily increafed, and as they muft have been all of them legionaries by birth, upon any military exigency a draught muft have been made out of the colonifts, and {itch a number levied as was- requilite to the occafion. And the towns naturally affumed the names of the legions to which the colonifts be- longed. Thefe frequently accompanied, thefe fometimes fuper- feded^ thfeir Britifh appellations. Thus we have Camulodunum and Glevum mentioned with the additional titles of Gemina Martia* Colonia Vi&ricenfis, and Claudia ,x - And thus we have Ilea Legio Secunda Augufta, Ilea Legio Augufta, Ilea Secunda, Ilea- Augufta, and Londinium Augufta ;. Deva Legio Vicelima Vi&rix, Deva Vi&rix, and DevaGetica; and Eboracum. Legio Sexta Vi£rix, Colonia nomine Sexta?, and Sexta ". It was happy for our British anceftors that their Mancunium was not, like the neighbouring Deva or the diftant Camulodunum, converted into a colony. If it had been converted by Agricola in 85, by Lollius afterwards, or by any of the fucceeding legates, itr might perhaps have flood more diftinguifhed in the pages of ©ur national hiftory, or have appeared with greater luftre in the> fragments of our national antiquities. It might have enjoyed the pleafmg fatisfa£tion to gaze upon the initials of its own name glittering fairly upon a Roman coin, orto catch the whole of it juft fading into obfeurity upon a Roman ftone. And it might have had the ravifhing felicity of being clafled by the Britifh antiquarians among the cities that had poflefled the privilege of a Roman mint, and of being ranked by the Britifh medallift among the towns that had contributed to enrich his Roman colle&ion,. Bat the houfes which our fathers had built and the lands which our fathers had' cultivated would have been all feized by the rapa- cious legionaries, and they and their families have been obliged to abandon Mancunium. for ever s *. Nor would the condition of the citizens have been bettered v if die town had even obtained the higheft, degree in the {bale of civil privileges, and been modelled like Verulam and York J% into